Stoic wisdom advocates practice of premeditatio malorum — the continuous visualization of worst-case scenarios. This negative visualization is said to inoculate one’s wellbeing against inevitable misfortune and strengthen gratitude for the everyday. The recommendation rests on the same intuition that derives the famous equality:
Happiness = Reality - Expectations
which quantifies the elusive emotion with the dryness of an accountant. The goal of negative visualization is not merely to recalibrate one’s internal assessment of what to expect from the world, but to fundamentally mis-calibrate it such that the formula tends positive. The stoic strives not to maximize the equation, but to guard against it ever falling below zero. In modern terms, its tampering with one’s own internal “dopamine reward prediction error” by hacking the prediction.
But what distinguishes stoic negative visualization from the regular afflictions of the anxious mind? Anxiety is, after all, precisely the state of continuously suffering from the visualization of worst-case outcomes. I will offer two explanations, and refute them both.
The Magnitude Distinction
The first distinction is in the magnitudes of how likely and how bad are the outcomes that each bears in mind. The stoic visualizes not merely bad outcomes, but precisely the worst possible outcomes (death, ruin) - regardless of thier likelihood. By contrast the anxious mind suffers concern with even moderately bad outcomes considered likely enough (by its’s own assessemnt, accurate or not) to be worth planning for.
By this account, the remedy for the anxious mind - knotting itself over thoughts of impending unpleasantries - is to shout at it: “You’re not even imagining things bad enough! Think of things even worse and even less likely!”.
The Category Error
The second difference lies in categorization. While the stoic places their visualization into the bucket of “expectations” the anxious misidentifies their simulation for “reality.” The anxious mind says to itself, “My reality is so precarious that these unpleasant outcomes are effectively happening now.” So while the stoic’s double-negative becomes a positive in the happiness equation, the anxious mind’s misplacement calamitously decrements the total sum.
Resolution
While both perspecitves hold truth, a philosopher like Nietzsche would ridicule the attempt to distinguish the anxious and stoic visualizer. Both seek to protect themselves from the bite of reality. The anxious man trembles before the blow falls; the stoic hardens his skin so he does not feel it. The stoic is simply the anxious man who has learned to play a trick on his own nervous system.
The H=R-E equation embodies a poverty of the spirit where your only path to joy is to bankrupt your hope. “Do not expect too much, and you won’t be sad” is herd morality. The stoic tries to master reality by killing his own vulnerability, the Nietzschean accepts his vulnerability because it is the source of his power. The great man suffers deeply, but he loves his suffering because it is his life. In so doing, the Nietzschean loves his fate (amor fati) more even than the stoic.